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Zelensky urges Trump to share Ukraine peace plan but says he won’t give territory to Russia | CNN Politics

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Volodymyr Zelensky urged Donald Trump to share his peace plans publicly if the former US president has a way to end the war between Ukraine and Russia – but the Ukrainian president cautioned in an interview Tuesday that any peace plan where Ukraine gives up territory would be unacceptable.

“He can publicly share his idea now, not waste time, not to lose people, and say, ‘My formula is to stop the war and stop all this tragedy and stop Russian aggression,’” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, following his speech Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly. “And he said, how he sees it, how to push Russian from our land. Otherwise, he’s not presenting the global idea of peace.”

The Ukrainian president added: “So (if) the idea is how to take the part of our territory and to give Putin, that is not the peace formula.”

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has claimed that he would be able to cut a deal with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. Pressed Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about whether the deal would let Putin keep the land he’s taken, Trump said, “No, no. I’d make a fair deal for everybody. Nope, I’d make it fair.”

Trump, asked at the time whether it would be a win for Putin, said, “You know, that’s something that could have been negotiated. Because there were certain parts, Crimea and other parts of the country, that a lot of people expected could happen. You could have made a deal. So they could have made a deal where there’s lesser territory right now than Russia’s already taken, to be honest.”

Zelensky’s trip to the United Nations comes as Ukraine is facing its stiffest headwinds in the US to date over support for the war. A faction of the House GOP conference is openly hostile to providing Ukraine with any additional military aid, and it remains unclear whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will be willing to sign off on more funding.

In the interview, Zelensky gave a positive assessment of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, which has sparked concerns that it’s failing to achieve expected results. And he reiterated Ukraine’s desire to obtain long-range missiles from the US, which President Joe Biden is still considering, saying it would be “a loss” for Ukraine if they do not receive them.

“We are on the finishing line, I’m sure of that,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky told Blitzer that he’s planning to meet with McCarthy when he travels to Washington later this week. Asked about those skeptical of offering more funding to Ukraine, Zelensky said that it was difficult for those who have not seen war up close to compare domestic problems like civil rights or energy to the existential threat facing a country under attack.

“It’s so difficult to understand when you are in war, and when you are not in war,” Zelensky said. “Even when you come to the war, to the country which is in war, when you come to one day, you can understand more than you live, you hear, you think, you read. No, you can’t compare. It’s different situation. That’s why I’m thinking we can’t compare these challenges.”

Biden last month asked Congress to approve an additional $24 billion in emergency spending for Ukraine and other international needs. While there’s bipartisan support for the funding package in the Senate, there’s no sign yet that the Republican-led House will play ball.

Following his speech Tuesday at the UN General Assembly, Zelensky is traveling to Washington, DC, where he will hold talks with Biden at the White House, along with a visit to Capitol Hill. Zelensky addressed a joint meeting of Congress in a surprise appearance last December.

Zelensky’s trip to the Capitol this week gives him the chance to make a personal pitch to skeptical lawmakers to approve more aid for the war. The Ukrainian leader is slated to speak at an all-senators meeting, though a similar meeting is not planned for the House.

McCarthy, who is expected to meet with Zelensky along with other House leaders, declined Tuesday to commit to more funding for Ukraine.

“Was Zelensky elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think so. I have questions for where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent? What is this the plan for victory?” the California Republican said.

‘Nobody knows’

Asked whether a major breakthrough was possible this year in Ukraine’s military counteroffensive, Zelensky said, “I think nobody knows, really.”

“But I think that we will have more success,” he said, noting gains Ukraine has made in the east.

Zelensky said he remained focus on obtaining more long-range missiles from the US, arguing that Ukraine did not want them to target Russia but to keep the battlefield capabilities level between the two sides.

Biden is expected to make a final decision soon on sending the long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, also known as ATACMS, CNN reported earlier this month.

“It would be a loss for us” if the weapons are not provided, Zelensky said, adding it would result in “more casualties on the battlefield and elsewhere.”

He also reiterated the need for more air defense systems, particularly the US-made Patriot air defense system, saying they were needed to help protect civilian areas.

Zelensky downplayed tensions between the US and Ukrainian officials over Ukraine’s military strategy in Russian-occupied Crimea, when asked about skepticism from officials in Washington over Ukraine ramping up missile strikes to try to disrupt Russian logistics and resupply efforts.

“We think the same way,” he said.

Still, Zelensky defended the strategy.

“Temporary-occupied Crimea – it’s a place they store weapons to kill our civilians,” he said. “They’re shooting from Crimea into our territory. And of course, we have to see where their rockets are coming from, and we have to basically deal with it.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

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August 2, 2023
FCC to reintroduce rules protecting net neutrality | CNN Business

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The US government aims to restore sweeping regulations for high-speed internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, reviving “net neutrality” rules for the broadband industry — and an ongoing debate about the internet’s future.

The proposed rules from the Federal Communications Commission will designate internet service — both the wired kind found in homes and businesses as well as mobile data on cellphones — as “essential telecommunications” akin to traditional telephone services, said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The rules would ban internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing down access to websites and online content.

In addition to the prohibitions on blocking and throttling internet traffic, the draft rules also seek to prevent ISPs from selectively speeding up service to favored websites or to those that agree to pay extra fees, Rosenworcel said, a move designed to prevent the emergence of “fast lanes” on the web that could give some websites a paid advantage over others.

With Tuesday’s proposal, the FCC aims to restore Obama-era regulations that the FCC under Republican leadership rolled back during the Trump administration.

But the proposal is likely to trigger strong pushback from internet providers who have spent years fighting earlier versions of the rules in court.

Beyond their immediate impact to internet providers, the draft rules directly help US telecom regulators address a range of consumer issues in the longer run by allowing the FCC to bring its most powerful legal tools to bear, Rosenworcel said. Some of the priorities the FCC could address after the implementation of net neutrality rules include spam robotexts, internet outages, digital privacy and high-speed internet access, said Rosenworcel in a speech at the National Press Club Tuesday to announce the proposal.

Rosenworcel said reclassifying internet service providers as essential telecommunications entities — by regulating them under Title II of the FCC’s congressional charter — would provide the FCC with clearer authority to adopt future rules governing everything from public safety to national security.

Rosenworcel argued, “without reclassification, the FCC has limited authority to incorporate updated cybersecurity standards into our network policies.”

She added that traditional telephone companies currently cannot sell customer data, but those restrictions do not apply to ISPs, which are regulated differently. “Does that really make sense? Do we want our broadband providers selling off where we go and what we do online?”

Regulating internet providers using the most powerful tools at the FCC’s disposal would let the agency crack down harder on spam robotexts, Rosenworcel said, as spammers are “constantly evolving their techniques.”

And the proposed rules could promote the Biden administration’s agenda to blanket the country in fast, affordable broadband, she argued, by granting internet providers the rights to put their equipment on telephone poles.

“As a nation we are committed, post-pandemic, to building broadband for all,” she said. “So keep in mind that when you construct these facilities, utility poles are really important.”

The FCC plans to vote Oct. 19 on whether to advance the draft rules by soliciting public feedback on them — a step that would precede the creation of any final rules.

Net neutrality rules are more necessary than ever, Rosenworcel said in her speech, after millions of Americans discovered the vital importance of reliable internet access during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rosenworcel also made the case that a single, national standard on net neutrality could give businesses the certainty they need to speed up efforts to blanket the nation in fast, affordable broadband.

But Rosenworcel’s push is already inviting a widespread revolt from internet providers that make up some of the most powerful and well-resourced groups in Washington.

The proposal could also lead to more of what has helped make net neutrality a household term over the past decade: Late-night segments by comedians including John Oliver and Stephen Colbert; in-person demonstrations, including at the FCC’s headquarters and at the home of its chair; allegations of fake, AstroTurfed public comments and claims of cyberattacks; and even threats of violence.

The latest net neutrality rulemaking reflects one of the most visible efforts of Rosenworcel’s chairwomanship — and one of her first undertakings since the US Senate this month confirmed Anna Gomez as the agency’s fifth commissioner, breaking a years-long 2-2 partisan deadlock at the FCC that had prevented hot-button initiatives from moving forward.

The draft rules also show how a continued lack of federal legislation to establish a nationwide net neutrality standard has led to continued flip-flopping rules for ISPs with every change of political administration, along with a patchwork of state laws seeking to fill the gap.

If approved next month, the FCC draft would be opened for public comment until approximately mid-December, followed by an opportunity for public replies lasting into January. A final set of rules could be voted on in the months following.

For years, consumer advocacy groups have called for strong rules that could prevent ISPs from distorting the free flow of information on the internet using arbitrary or commercially motivated traffic rules.

In contrast, ISPs have long argued that websites using up big portions of a network’s capacity, such as search engines or video streaming sites, should pay for the network demand their users generate. European Union officials are said to be considering just such a proposal.

A third rail of broadband policy

In attempting to revive the agency rules, the FCC is once again touching what has become the third rail of US broadband policy: Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, the law that gave the FCC its congressional mandate to regulate legacy telephone services.

Tuesday’s proposal moves to regulate ISPs under Title II, which would give the FCC clearer authority to impose rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization of websites. The draft rules are substantially similar to the rules the FCC passed in 2015, the people said. The rules were upheld in 2016 by a federal appeals court in Washington in the face of an industry lawsuit.

Soon after that ruling, however, Donald Trump won the White House, leading him to name Ajit Pai, then one of the FCC’s Republican commissioners, as its chair. Among Pai’s first acts as agency chief was to propose a rollback of the earlier net neutrality rules. The FCC voted in 2017 to reverse the rules, with Pai arguing that the repeal would accelerate private investment in broadband networks and free the industry from heavy-handed regulation. The repeal took effect in 2018.

In the time since, ISPs have refrained from doing the kind of blocking and preferential treatment that net neutrality advocates have warned could occur, but Rosenworcel’s proposal highlights how concerns about that possibility have persisted.

The Biden administration on Tuesday praised the FCC’s plan to reintroduce net neutrality rules for broadband providers.

“President Biden supports net neutrality so that large corporations can’t pick and choose what content you can access online or charge you more for certain content,” said Hannah Garden-Monheit, special assistant to the president for economic policy. “Today’s announcement is a major step forward for American consumers and small businesses and demonstrates the importance of the president’s push to restore competition in our economy.”

Net neutrality began as a bipartisan issue, with the George W. Bush administration issuing some of the earliest principles for an open internet that led to FCC attempts at concrete regulation in 2010 and again in 2015.

The telecom and cable industries have long opposed the use of Title II to regulate broadband, arguing that it would be a form of government overreach, that telephone-style regulations are not suited for digital technologies, and that it would discourage private investment in broadband networks, hindering Americans’ ability to get online.

“Treating broadband as a Title II utility is a dangerous and costly solution in search of a problem,” said USTelecom, a prominent industry trade group, in a statement Tuesday. “Congress must step in on this major question and end this game of regulatory ping-pong. The future of the open, vibrant internet we now enjoy hangs in the balance.”

The reference to net neutrality as a “major question” offers clues about possible future litigation involving the proposal, as the Supreme Court has increasingly invoked the “major questions” doctrine to scrutinize federal agency initiatives.

In her speech Tuesday, Rosenworcel acknowledged the coming pushback — as well as past incidents involving supporters of strong net neutrality rules.

“I have every expectation that this process will get messy at times,” Rosenworcel said. “In the past, when this subject came up, we saw death threats against [former Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai] and his family. That is completely unacceptable, and I am grateful to law enforcement for bringing the individual behind these threats to justice. We had a fake bomb threat called in to disrupt a vote at the agency. We had protesters blocking [former Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler] in his driveway and keeping him from his car. We saw a dark effort to tear down a pro-net neutrality nominee for the agency.”

Part of what made the FCC’s 2015 rules particularly controversial, however, was that classifying ISPs as Title II providers meant the agency could theoretically attempt to set prices for internet service directly, a prospect that ISPs widely feared but that the FCC in 2015 promised not to do.

Tuesday’s proposal makes the same commitment, the people said, forbearing from 26 provisions of Title II and more than 700 other agency rules that could be seen as intrusive. The draft rules also prohibit the FCC from forcing ISPs to share their network infrastructure with other, competing internet providers, the people said, a concept known as network unbundling.

On top of fierce industry pushback in the FCC’s comments process, the proposal could also lead to legal challenges against the FCC. While the 2015 net neutrality rules survived on appeal, suggesting the current FCC may be on firm ground to issue the current proposed rules, the draft comes as the Supreme Court has moved to reconsider the power of federal agencies by scrutinizing courts’ decades-long deference to their expert authority.

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August 2, 2023
Amy Coney Barrett: Supreme Court ethics code would be a good idea | CNN Politics

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Amy Coney Barrett on Monday became the latest Supreme Court justice to address ethics concerns, saying that she thought it would be a “good idea” for the justices to adopt a formal code of conduct that would directly bind the justices.

Her comments came during an appearance that was briefly interrupted by protesters at University of Minnesota Law School in a talk moderated by Professor Robert A. Stein. “Not the Court, not the State, People must decide their fate,” chanted the protesters, who appeared to make reference to her controversial vote last year to overturn Roe v. Wade – a decision that has triggered protests nationwide.

When the talk resumed, Barrett confirmed that the justices have been discussing ethics concerns and are committed to holding themselves to the “highest standards.”

It would be a “good idea” to adopt a formal code, she said, “particularly so that we can communicate to the public exactly what it is that we are doing in a clearer way than perhaps we have been able to do so far.”

She stressed there is “unanimity among all nine justices that we should and do hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards possible.”

Although Barrett didn’t address specific concerns, news reports over the last several months have detailed alleged ethics lapses on the part of some of the justices and Democrats in Congress are pushing for legislation that would enforce a code conduct.

Other justices have confirmed in recent months that talks about ethics are ongoing, although no concrete steps have been announced. Barrett said she couldn’t speak to the timing of any announcement.

Barrett, who voted with her conservative colleagues last year to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion, was also asked about when a justice should vote to overturn precedent.

She said that there are several considerations a judge thinks about when voting to overrule precedent, including the “effects of that error” on the law today and whether the error “has distorted other areas of the law.”

“Overturning precedent is not something to be done lightly,” Barrett said.

On a different note, Barrett, who has seven children, also spoke of the perils of being a working mother – noting that she shares the same struggles as many working parents.

She recounted a morning last term where one of her children had been listening to the Baha Men’s “Who let the dogs out” just before the school bus arrived.

Hours later, Barrett confessed, she found herself walking down the austere marble hallways of the court humming the hit because she couldn’t get it out of her head.

Motherhood, Barrett said, is very “grounding” and keeps her “very much rooted in real life.”

Asked if she was enjoying herself on the high court, Barrett said the job has its “ups and downs” and that she feels a “grave responsibility” at times.

“Enjoying myself is not quite the word I would use, but it is a privilege to serve, and I have no regrets about undertaking the service, and I am fully conscious that everything I am doing is very important for the people of America and those are the people for whom I work,” she said.

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August 2, 2023
These are the House Republicans running for speaker | CNN Politics

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The high-stakes race for the House speakership entered a new phase Tuesday evening, with a slate of more Republicans vying for the gavel after Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer withdrew his bid just hours after winning the GOP conference’s nomination.

The party is under intensifying pressure to find a new leader, though it remains increasingly unclear whether any Republican can get the 217 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor.

After Emmer’s abrupt exit, the conference pivoted toward finding a new nominee, with five candidates in the running.

Members will cast a successive series of secret ballots, and the candidate who garners the fewest number of votes in each round will be dropped from the running. The winning candidate will still need a majority of the conference behind them, meaning that it’s possible the race for speaker might not be fully settled at the end of the conference meeting.

Here are the Republican lawmakers vying for the speakership:

The Freedom Caucus member from Florida, who’s among the few Black Republicans in Congress, first announced on X that he would seek the speakership to advance a “conservative vision for the House of Representatives and the American people.”

Donalds received votes from the GOP’s far-right members in January’s speaker marathon as a protest to Kevin McCarthy, who ultimately clinched the speakership after 15-rounds of voting but was ousted earlier this month.

Donalds is serving his second term, winning his first election to Congress in 2020 after GOP Rep. Francis Rooney vacated Florida’s 19th Congressional District. The Florida State University graduate worked in the banking, finance, and insurance industries before being elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016, according to his office.

The Tennessee Republican was first elected to Congress in 2010.

A University of Tennessee law school graduate, he sits on the House Appropriations Committee, where he chairs the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, and serves on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Fleischmann previously supported Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker.

The Tennessee Republican has been in Congress since 2019. He chairs the Homeland Security Committee and also sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

A veteran and ER doctor, Green was a Tennessee state senator before winning his election to the House of Representatives.

The Louisiana Republican, who serves as the House GOP conference vice chairman, first announced a run for speaker in a letter to his colleagues over the weekend, saying, “After much prayer and deliberation, I am stepping forward now.”

Johnson was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as a deputy whip for the House GOP. He was previously chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and sits on the Judiciary Committee, Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and on the Armed Services Committee.

Rep. Kevin Hern, an Oklahoma Republican who chairs the influential Republican Study Committee, dropped out of the race for speaker Tuesday evening and backed Johnson.

“I want everyone to know this race has gotten to the point where it’s gotten crazy. This is more about people right now than it should be,” he said. “This should be about America and America’s greatness. For that, I stepped aside and threw all my support behind Mike Johnson. I think he’d make a great speaker.”

The Texas Republican was first elected in 2012 and previously supported former speaker nominee Jordan.

Williams is the chairman of the Small Business Committee and serves on the Financial Services Committee.

Williams had previously said that he wouldn’t launch a bid for the speaker’s gavel. In an October 21 statement posted to social media, he said that it “wasn’t the right time” to run for the position.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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August 2, 2023
FCC issues historic $300 million fine against the largest robocall scam it has ever investigated | CNN Business

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The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday cracked down on a massive illegal robocall operation responsible for billions of auto-warranty scam calls in recent years, with regulators imposing a record $300 million fine on what authorities said is the largest such network it has ever investigated.

The globe-spanning illegal operation violated US telecom laws by making more than five billion robocalls to more than half a billion phone numbers over the course of just three months in 2021, the FCC said in a release Wednesday.

But the campaign had been in existence for even longer, the FCC added. Using a multitude of shell companies, aliases and fly-by-night phone providers allegedly under their control, the people behind the network — which CNN has previously reported on — had sought to dupe unwitting consumers into buying shoddy service contracts for their vehicles since 2018.

The ringleaders of the operation, Roy Melvin Cox Jr. and Aaron Michael Jones, were repeat offenders who had already been under judicial orders not to engage in telemarketing.

A breakthrough in enforcement came last July, when Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against the network that outlined many of the operation’s details, including its organizational structure. At the same time, the FCC directed US voice providers to stop carrying calls originating from providers used by the network.

Within weeks, third-party industry estimates showed an 80% reduction in the volume of auto-warranty spam calls in the United States, and on Thursday, the FCC said the move ultimately led to a 99% reduction in such calls.

The Ohio AG’s lawsuit had been the culmination of a joint state and federal investigation that also highlighted the growing effectiveness of technology and policies aimed at beating back the tide of illegal robocalls.

For example, improvements in call-tracing have allowed investigators to quickly identify the source of unwanted, automated calls, while additional FCC policies have enabled regulators to block entire voice providers from the US telephone network for robocall violations.

The partnership between the FCC and Ohio officials has also been replicated with 46 other states, the District of Columbia and Guam, with Hawaii and New Mexico joining the list on Thursday, the FCC said.

It is now up to the Justice Department to collect on the federal fine, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement, adding that in the future, Congress should authorize the FCC to seek payment through the courts directly on its own.

“We know the scam artists behind these calls are relentless — but we are coming for them and won’t stop until we get this junk off the line,” Rosenworcel said.

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August 2, 2023
US will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s in October | CNN Politics

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The US has announced that it will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets in October.

“Following English language training for pilots in September, F-16 flying training is expected to begin in October at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, facilitated by the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing,” Pentagon Spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday at a press briefing.

“Although we do not have specific numbers to share at this time in regards to how many Ukrainians will participate in this training, we do anticipate it will include several pilots and dozens of maintainers.”

Earlier on Thursday, two US officials told CNN an announcement of the training program was coming. The officials said the pilots still need to go through English language training before they can begin learning to operate the fourth-generation American jets. The language classes will also take place in the US, at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

Lackland is home to the Defense Language Institute English Language Center, which provides English language training for international military and civilian personnel.

Ukraine put forward a list of approximately 32 pilots who are ready to begin training on F-16 fighter jets, according to another US official, but most did not have a strong enough command of the English language yet, a necessary requirement since the jet’s instrumentation and manuals are all in English.

The pilots, along with some personnel who will receive training on maintaining the aircraft, could arrive in the US as soon as next month, one official said. Once the language instruction is complete, the Ukrainian pilots will be able to begin training to fly the F-16s, one official said. It is not yet clear how long it will take to train the pilots, who have flown Soviet-era MIG and Sukhoi fighters, to fly more modern western jets.

For American F-16 pilots, training can take anywhere from eight months for brand new pilots, to five months for pilots with more experience, Ryder said Thursday.

He also explained that the training will include a number of specific instructions, including fundamental skills like formation flying and basic fighter maneuvers, to combat maneuvering, tactical intercepts, suppression of enemy air defenses, and how to cope with G-force. All of that is in addition to the training for logistics and maintenance personnel.

“So training all of those maintainers on how to maintain this aircraft so that it can stay in the air, training the ground support, air traffic controllers, the fuelers, the communications associated with that – all of that is entailed in maintaining this this platform.”

The US decided to preemptively arrange training for Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter jets after recognizing that training in Europe would eventually reach capacity, Ryder said Thursday.

“So really, as we looked at our European allies providing this training, recognizing the fact that we want to do everything we can to help move this effort along as quickly as possible in support of Ukraine, we know that as the Danes and the Dutch prepare to train those pilots, at a certain point in time in the future, capacity will be reached,” Ryder said. “So preemptively, acknowledging that and leaning forward in order to assist with this effort is the impetus for why we’re doing this now.”

Morris Air National Guard base hosted two Ukrainian fighter pilots in March to evaluate how fast they can learn to fly the F-16, a program which showed the Ukrainian pilots demonstrated above average abilities in several different areas.

The base is also home to the 162nd Wing, a part of the Arizona Air National Guard whose mission is to train international partners on the F-16. The unit has trained pilots from 25 different countries to fly the fourth-generation jet.

In honor of Ukrainian Independence Day, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “The United States is proud to stand with Ukraine, and we will continue to ensure that it has what it needs to fight for its freedom.” Repeating a promise often made by the Biden administration, he said in a statement that the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes in its fight for security and freedom.”

Earlier this week, Denmark and the Netherlands – the two countries leading the coalition to train Ukrainians to fly and operate F-16 fighter jets – committed to send aircraft to Ukraine. Denmark pledged to send 19 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine over the next several years. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said the Netherlands would provide 42 F-16s to Ukraine, though the Dutch Prime Minister did not commit to providing all of them to Kyiv.

On Sunday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukrainian pilots and technical crews have already begun training on the jets. Reznikov said the “minimal term” for the training is six months, though it would be up to the instructors to decide how long the course will run.

The spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force said F-16s can “change the course of events” and allow Kyiv to achieve “air superiority in the occupied territories.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Morris Air National Guard Base hosted two Ukrainian fighter pilots in March and is home to the 162nd Wing.

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August 2, 2023
US military leaders say Tuberville is aiding US adversaries with hold on military nominations | CNN Politics

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The three US military service secretaries went on the offensive against Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville over his ongoing hold on senior military nominations in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, saying he is aiding communist and autocratic regimes, and being used by adversaries like China against the US.

“Our potential adversaries are paying attention,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told CNN’s Jake Tapper alongside Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth in an exclusive joint interview for “The Lead.” “It is affecting how they view the United States and our military capabilities and support for the military. This needs to stop.”

Kendall said that at an embassy event in Washington, DC, an Air Force general officer was “taunted” by a Chinese colonel “about the way our democracy was working.”

Del Toro echoed the same concerns, saying that as someone “born in a communist country, I would have never imagined one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting a communist and other autocratic regimes around the world.”

“This is having a real negative impact and will continue to have an impact on our combat readiness,” said Del Toro, who was born in Cuba. “That is what the American people truly need to understand.”

“It is just unprecedented to be attacking apolitical general officers and flag officers in this way. It is taking our apolitical military … and eroding its foundations,” Wormuth added.

The three spoke a day after they wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which they said the months-long standoff is “putting our national security at risk.”

The unusual public intervention from the secretaries in a congressional political dispute reflects the frustration felt at the highest levels of the US military over Tuberville’s holds, which have been in place for six months.

“Senators have many legislative and oversight tools to show their opposition to a specific policy. They are free to introduce legislation, gather support for that legislation and pass it. But placing a blanket hold on all general and flag officer nominees, who as apolitical officials have traditionally been exempt from the hold process, is unfair to these military leaders and their families. And it is putting our national security at risk,” the leaders write.

In an interview with CNN, Tuberville doubled down on his stance and expressed disappointment in Del Toro’s comments to Tapper about him.

“It is concerning that you got people that are in secretary positions like that, that would say something like that in our country, instead of getting on the phone and calling me and saying ‘Coach, what are you doing?’ It just makes no sense,” he said.

Tuberville, of Alabama, has delayed the confirmations of more than 300 top military nominees over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members and their families who have to travel to receive abortion care. In the Senate, one senator can hold up nominations or legislation, and Tuberville’s stance has left three military services to operate without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history.

It’s possible to confirm each of the nominees one by one, but Senate Democrats have argued that would take up valuable floor time – despite a five-week recess taken in August. The Senate is reconvening on Tuesday.

Without the replacements, the “foundation of America’s enduring military advantage is being actively eroded” by Tuberville, and the holds also have “a domino effect upending the lives of our more junior officers, too,” the leaders write.

“We know officers who have incurred significant unforeseen expenses and are facing genuine financial stress because they have had to relocate their families or unexpectedly maintain two residences,” they write. “Military spouses who have worked to build careers of their own are unable to look for jobs because they don’t know when or if they will move. Children haven’t known where they will go to school, which is particularly hard given how frequently military children change schools already.”

Wormuth mentioned Tuesday an Army general officer who has been unable to move their aging mother into their home because the hold on their nomination has kept them from moving into a new house as they’d planned.

“Because that move isn’t happening, they are paying $10,000 a month right now month to keep the aging parent in an assisted living facility,” Wormuth said. “That is the kind of consequence that’s happening, and these are service members who have literally put their lives on the line for Americans for the last 20 years.”

The op-ed concludes, “We believe that the vast majority of senators and of Americans across the political spectrum recognize the stakes of this moment and the dangers of politicizing our military leaders. It is time to lift this dangerous hold and confirm our senior military leaders.”

“Chuck Schumer could confirm all of the service chiefs in one day—but he refuses. Instead he just took five weeks off. Clearly he is not worried about this affecting readiness,” Steven Stafford, a Tuberville spokesperson, told CNN.

In July, Tuberville posted on X, “I didn’t start this. The Biden admin injected politics in the military and imposed an unlawful abortion policy on American taxpayers. I am trying to get politics out of the military.”

Tuberville says the Pentagon is violating law with the reproductive health policies that include, among other things, a travel allowance for troops and their families who must travel to receive an abortion because of the state laws where they are stationed. Pentagon officials have pointed to a Justice Department memo that says the policies are lawful.

The holds first began in March and Tuberville has held his ground despite mounting public pressure.

Active-duty military spouses hand-delivered a petition to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Tuberville in July signed by hundreds of military family members who were “deeply concerned and personally impacted by Senator Tuberville blocking confirmation of senior military leaders.”

By the end of this year, there will be more than 600 military officers up for nomination, including the nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden to take over for Army Gen. Mark Milley.

Among other positions, the chief of naval operations, Army chief of staff and Marine Corps commandant are serving in acting capacities. In some cases, the officer filling the role on a temporary basis is lower-ranking than the officer who was nominated to take the position; the Missile Defense Agency, for example, is being led by a one-star in an acting capacity despite the position typically being filled by a three-star general.

Wormuth said Tuesday that she’s worried the hold will impact morale among lower-ranking officers.

“I really worry that a lot of those officers who volunteer are going to walk away and basically say, ‘I don’t want to deal with this,’” she said, “‘If this is what it takes to be a general officer, I don’t want to do this.’”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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August 2, 2023
FBI agent contests whistleblower claims in Hunter Biden case, transcript shows | CNN Politics

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The FBI agent managing the team on the Hunter Biden criminal case testified to the House Judiciary Committee that US Attorney David Weiss had ultimate authority over the case, contesting testimony brought forward by whistleblowers.

Thomas Sobocinski, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore field office, told committee investigators in a closed-door interview last week that from his perspective, Weiss had the authority to bring forward whatever charges he wanted in whatever venue he preferred.

“It was my understanding that David Weiss had the authority, and at no point did I ever differ from that,” Sobociniski said, according to a copy of his interview transcript obtained by CNN. “There’s never been anything in my view that changed that.”

Sobocinski’s transcript, which was first reported by The Washington Post, comes as House Republicans continue to investigate allegations that the criminal case of President Joe Biden’s son was mishandled. It’s all part of the House GOP impeachment inquiry into the president, even though Republicans have yet to find evidence that the president did anything illegal.

Sobocinski’s testimony disputes a number of claims from an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower about a key October 2022 meeting including FBI and IRS agents, Weiss, and other Justice Department prosecutors that occurred at a critical point in the criminal probe. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who was in the meeting and worked on this case, said Weiss revealed in that meeting that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed. Shapley provided his notes on that meeting and email exchanges about it to Congress to support his claim. The notes say, “Weiss stated – He is not the deciding person.”

But Sobocinski was also in that October 2022 meeting and said Weiss never said that.

“I went into that meeting believing he had the authority, and I have left that meeting believing he had the authority to bring charges,” Sobocinski testified.

Reflecting on Shapley’s accusation of Weiss, Sobocinski said, “In my recollection, if he would have said that, I would have remembered it.”

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee responding to Sobocinski’s testimony, Shapley’s legal team contested Sobocinski’s testimony, noting that Shapley took notes of the October 2022 meeting while Sobocinski did not.

“Mr. Sobocinski apparently acknowledged that he took no notes in the meeting, nor did he document it in any contemporaneous fashion afterwards,” wrote Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt and attorney Mark Lytle, according to the letter obtained by CNN. “By contrast, SSA Shapley took notes during the meeting. These notes, combined with his fresh memory of the meeting, formed the basis for the email he sent later that day and corroborate his current recollection.”

House Republicans responded to the comments saying that the whistleblowers, Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, a 13-year IRS special agent with the Criminal Investigation Division, were “wholly consistent.”

“Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler have been wholly consistent throughout their disclosures to Congress, and the only people who haven’t are people like David Weiss, Merrick Garland, and their liberal cronies,” said Russell Dye, a spokesperson for Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican.

Sobocinski also disputed Shapley’s claim that Weiss said in the October 2022 meeting he was denied special counsel status and denied venues to bring forward charges.

Sobocinski told the House Judiciary panel he was informed of Weiss’ special counsel status the day Attorney General Merrick Garland announced it last month, and that Weiss was not previously denied special counsel status as Shapley has claimed.

“I don’t have a recollection with him saying that there or at any point in my communication with Mr. Weiss,” Sobocinski said. “That would have been a total 180 from all our previous conversations about authorities.”

When asked if anybody at FBI headquarters ever prevented Weiss from taking any steps or accessing any necessary resources, Sobocinski replied, “Not that I’m aware of.”

Sobocinski told congressional investigators that he did raise concerns repeatedly about the pace of the investigation into Hunter Biden.

“I would have liked for it to move faster,” he said.

Republicans on the committee raised the question of why Weiss was eventually given special counsel status if Weiss had the ultimate authority as Sobocinski has argued. Sobocinski acknowledged that Weiss would be the best person to answer these questions, and more specifics about how special counsel status was granted.

On whether Weiss was denied venues to bring forward charges against the president’s son, Sobocinski said he only had “high-level conversations” about the specific charges, but from his understanding “there was a process” within the Justice Department for US attorneys to bring forward charges outside of their district that involved a lot of “bureaucracy” but was “not a permission issue.”

“Without going into specifics, there were discussion about taxes and venue,” Sobocinski said. “And, once again, Mr. Weiss had the authority to bring it.”

Shapley’s notes on the October 2022 meeting included that an FBI agent asked the group if they were concerned about the investigation being politicized. Sobocinski noted that part of why the meeting was called was in response to a media leak about the status of the criminal investigation. He told congressional investigators that he wanted to ask anyone in the room if they felt the investigation into the president’s son had been politicized, and he said no one in the room, not even Shapley, raised any concerns.

“I wanted to go on record in the room of the leaders who were involved in this investigation,” Sobocinski said. “Thought that it was no, and nobody in that room raised their voice to say anything other.”

Sobocinski also addressed broader claims made about how the Hunter Biden criminal investigation has been handled. To discredit GOP claims that prosecutors colluded with Hunter Biden’s Secret Service by informing them they wanted to interview Hunter, Sobocinski said that as a former Secret Service agent, he said it was “expected” for an investigative entity to speak with him ahead of interviewing a protectee of his. Sobocinski also said he is not aware of any evidence that the Department of Justice has retaliated against the IRS whistleblowers who have come forward.

The Department of Justice sent Sobocinski a letter the day before his interview giving him permission to discuss the details of the October 7, 2022, meeting and Weiss’ authority on the case. But Sobocinski was not permitted to discuss the ongoing criminal investigation.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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August 2, 2023
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, set to begin human trials | CNN Business

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Elon Musk’s controversial biotechnology startup Neuralink opened up recruitment for its first human clinical trial Tuesday, according to a company blog.

After receiving approval from an independent review board, Neuralink is set to begin offering brain implants to paralysis patients as part of the PRIME Study, the company said. PRIME, short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface, is being carried out to evaluate both the safety and functionality of the implant.

Trial patients will have a chip surgically placed in the part of the brain that controls the intention to move. The chip, installed by a robot, will then record and send brain signals to an app, with the initial goal being “to grant people the ability to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone,” the company wrote.

Those with quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may qualify for the six-year-long study – 18 months of at-home and clinic visits followed by follow-up visits over five years. Interested people can sign up in the patient registry on Neuralink’s website.

Musk has been working on Neuralink’s goal of using implants to connect the human brain to a computer for five years, but the company so far has only tested on animals. The company also faced scrutiny after a monkey died in project testing in 2022 as part of efforts to get the animal to play Pong, one of the first video games.

In May, Neuralink tweeted that it had received FDA clearance for human clinical trials, with the approval acknowledged by the agency in a statement. The opening of human trials also comes over a month after the brain chip startup raised $280 million in a fundraising round led by Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based VC firm established by Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire who was also a co-founder at PayPal.

“We’re extremely excited about this next chapter at Neuralink,” the company wrote at the time on X, the Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Musk has forecast human trials at the startup at least four times since 2019, yet the company didn’t seek FDA approval until 2022. At that time, the agency rejected the bid, according to a March Reuters report, citing safety concerns about parts of the implant migrating to other parts of the brain and possible brain tissue damage when the devices are removed. Musk said at a December recruiting event that Neuralink has submitted “most” of its paperwork to the US Food and Drug Administration and could begin testing on humans within six months.

But employees told Reuters in December that the company is rushing to market, resulting in careless animal deaths and a federal investigation.

Neuralink did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Before Neuralink’s brain implants hit the broader market, they’ll need regulatory approval. The FDA put out a paper in 2021 mapping out the agency’s initial thoughts on brain-computer interface devices, noting the field is “progressing rapidly.”

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August 2, 2023
US government and 17 states sue Amazon in landmark monopoly case | CNN Business

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The US government and 17 states are suing Amazon in a landmark monopoly case reflecting years of allegations that the e-commerce giant abused its economic dominance and harmed fair competition.

The groundbreaking lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and 17 attorneys general marks the US government’s sharpest attack yet against Amazon, a company that started off selling books on the internet but has since become known as “the everything store,” expanding into selling a vast range of consumer products, creating a globe-spanning logistics network and becoming a powerhouse in other technologies such as cloud computing.

The complaint alleges Amazon unfairly promotes its own platform and services at the expense of third-party sellers who rely on the company’s e-commerce marketplace for distribution.

For example, according to the FTC, Amazon has harmed competition by requiring sellers on its platform to purchase Amazon’s in-house logistics services in order to secure the best seller benefits, referred to as “Prime” eligibility. It also claims the company anticompetitively forces sellers to list their products on Amazon at the lowest prices anywhere on the web, instead of allowing sellers to offer their products at competing marketplaces for a lower price.

That practice is already the subject of a separate lawsuit targeting Amazon filed by California’s attorney general last year.

Because of Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce, sellers have little option but to accept Amazon’s terms, the FTC alleges, resulting in higher prices for consumers and a worse consumer experience. Amazon also ranks its own products in marketplace search results higher than those sold by third parties, the FTC said.

Amazon is “squarely focused on preventing anyone else from gaining that same critical mass of customers,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters Tuesday. “This complaint reflects the cutting edge and best thinking on how competition occurs in digital markets and, similarly, the tactics that Amazon has used to suffocate rivals, deprive them of oxygen, and really leave a stunted landscape in its wake.”

The states involved in the case are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

The complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, and seeks a court order blocking Amazon from engaging in the allegedly anticompetitive behavior. Khan declined to say Tuesday whether the agency will be seeking a breakup of the company, saying the case is currently focused on proving Amazon’s liability under federal antitrust law.

The suit makes Amazon the third tech giant after Google and Meta to be hit with sweeping US government allegations that the company spent years violating federal antitrust laws, reflecting policymakers’ growing worldwide hostility toward Big Tech that intensified after 2016. The litigation could take years to play out. But just as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his spectacular wealth have inspired critics to draw comparisons to America’s Gilded Age, so may the FTC lawsuit come to symbolize a modern repeat of the antitrust crackdown of the early 20th century.

In a release, Khan accused Amazon of using “punitive and coercive tactics” to preserve an illegal monopoly.

“Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them,” Khan said. “Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition.”

“Today’s suit makes clear the FTC’s focus has radically departed from its mission of protecting consumers and competition. The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon’s store,”said David Zapolsky, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Global Public policy and General Counsel. “If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses—the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do. The lawsuit filed by the FTC today is wrong on the facts and the law, and we look forward to making that case in court.”

For years, Amazon’s critics including US lawmakers, European regulators, third-party sellers, consumer advocacy groups and more have accused the company of everything from mistreating its workers to forcing its third-party sellers to accept anticompetitive terms. Amazon has unfairly used sellers’ own commercial data against them, opponents have said, so it can figure out what products Amazon should sell itself. And the fact that Amazon competes with sellers on the very same marketplace it controls represents a conflict of interest that should be considered illegal, many of Amazon’s critics have said.

The lawsuit represents a watershed moment in Khan’s career. She is widely credited with kickstarting antitrust scrutiny of Amazon in the United States with a seminal law paper in 2017. She later helped lead a congressional investigation into the tech industry’s alleged competition abuses, detailing in a 450-page report how Amazon — as well as Apple, Google and Meta — enjoy “monopoly power” and that there is “significant evidence” to show that the companies’ anticompetitive conduct has hindered innovation, reduced consumer choice and weakened democracy.

The investigation led to a raft of legislative proposals aimed at reining in the companies, but the most significant ones have stalled under a barrage of industry lobbying and decisions by congressional leaders not to bring the bills up for a final vote.

Lawmakers’ inaction has left it to antitrust enforcers to police the tech industry’s alleged harms to competition. In 2021, President Joe Biden stunned many in Washington when he tapped Khan not only to serve on the FTC but to lead the agency, sending a signal that he supported tough antitrust oversight.

Since then Khan has taken an aggressive enforcement posture, particularly toward the tech industry. Under her watch, the FTC has sued to block numerous tech acquisitions, most notably Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to acquire video game publisher Activision Blizzard. It has moved to restrict how companies may collect and use consumers’ personal information, and warned them of the risks of generative artificial intelligence.

Throughout, the FTC has scrutinized Amazon — suing the company in June for allegedly tricking millions of consumers into signing up for Amazon Prime and reaching multimillion-dollar settlements in May with the company over alleged privacy violations linked to Amazon’s smart home devices.

But the latest suit against Amazon may rank as the most significant of all, because it drives at the heart of Amazon’s e-commerce business and focuses on some of the most persistent criticisms of the company. In a sign of how threatening Amazon perceived Khan’s ascent to be, the company in 2021 called for her recusal from all cases involving the tech giant.

Khan has resisted those calls. On Tuesday, the FTC said it held a unanimous 3-0 vote authorizing the lawsuit; Khan was among those voting to proceed.

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August 2, 2023
Major Supreme Court cases to watch in the new term | CNN Politics

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Looking at an upcoming Supreme Court term from the vantage point of the first Monday in October rarely tells the full story of what lies ahead, but the docket already includes major cases concerning the intersection between the First Amendment and social media, gun rights, racial gerrymandering and the power of the executive branch when it comes to regulation.

The court will still determine if it will hear oral arguments on issues such as medication abortion and transgender rights, not to mention the possibility of a flurry of emergency requests related to the 2024 election.

Here are some of the key cases on which the court will hear oral arguments this term:

After the Supreme Court issued a major decision last year expanding gun rights nationwide, lower courts began reconsidering hundreds of firearms regulations across the country under the new standard crafted by Justice Clarence Thomas that a gun law passes legal muster only if it is rooted in history and tradition.

On the heels of that decision, a federal appeals court invalidated a federal law that bars an individual who is subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. That law, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, “is an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.”

The Biden administration has appealed, saying the ruling “threatens grave harms for victims of domestic violence.”

In 2019, nearly two-thirds of domestic homicides in the United States were committed with a gun, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

Lawyers for Zackey Rahimi, a man who was prosecuted under the law in 2020 after a violent altercation with his girlfriend, have urged the justices to let the lower court opinion stand, arguing in part that there is no law from the founding era comparable to the statute at hand.

Racial gerrymandering: South Carolina congressional maps

Justices will consider a congressional redistricting plan drawn by South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature in the wake of the 2020 census. Critics say it was designed with discriminatory purpose and amounts to an illegal racial gerrymander.

The case focuses the court’s attention once again on the issue of race and map drawing and comes after the court ordered Alabama to redraw the state’s congressional map last term to account for the fact that the state is 27% black. The decision, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, surprised liberals who feared the court was going to make it harder for minorities to challenge maps under Section 2 of the historic Voting Rights Act.

In the latest case, the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and a Black voter named Taiwan Scott, are challenging the state’s congressional District 1 that is located along the southeastern coast and is anchored in Charleston County. Although the district consistently elected Republicans from 1980 to 2016, in 2018 a Democrat was elected in a political upset, though a Republican recaptured the seat in 2020.

The person who devised the map has testified that he was instructed to make the district “more Republican leaning,” but that he did not consider race. He did, however, acknowledge that he examined racial data after drafting each version and that the Black voting age population of the district was likely viewed during the drafting process.

A three-judge district court panel struck down the plan in January, saying that race had been the predominant motivating factor. “To achieve a target of 17% African American population,” the court said, “Charleston County was racially gerrymandered and over 30,000 African Americans were removed from their home district.”

Expert explains why Justice Thomas’ gifts from wealthy friends are problematic

In the latest attack against the so-called administrative state, the justices are considering whether to overturn decades old precedent to scale back the power of federal agencies, impacting how the government tackles issues such as climate change, immigration, labor conditions and public health.

At issue is an appeal from herring fishermen in the Atlantic who say the National Marine Fisheries Service does not have the authority to require them to pay the salaries of government monitors who ride aboard the fishing vessels.

In agreeing to hear the case, the justices signaled they will reconsider a 1984 decision – Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council – that sets forward factors to determine when courts should defer to a government agency’s interpretation of the law. First, they examine a statute to see if Congress’ intent is clear. It if is – then the matter is settled. But if there is ambiguity – the court defers to the agency’s expertise.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that the agency was acting within the scope of its authority under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and said the fishermen are not responsible for all the costs. The regulation was put in place to combat overfishing of the fisheries off the coasts of the US.

Representing the fishermen, former Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that the government exceeded its authority and needs direct and clear congressional authorization to make such a demand. “The ‘net effect’ of Chevron,” Clement said, is that it “incentives a dynamic where Congress does far less than the Framers anticipated, and the executive branch is left to do far more by deciding controversial issues via regulatory fiat”

For the second time in recent years, the court is taking aim at a watchdog agency created to combat unfair and deceptive practices against consumers, in a case that could deal a fatal blow to the future of the agency and send reverberations throughout the financial services industry.

At the center of the case at hand is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an independent agency set up in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown that works to monitor the practices of lenders, debt collectors and credit rating agencies.

Congress chose to fund the CFPB from outside the annual appropriations process to ensure its independence. As such, the agency receives its funding each year from the earnings of the Federal Reserve System. But the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals held last year that the funding scheme violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, that, the court said “ensures Congress’ “exclusive power over the federal purse.”

According to the CFPB, the agency has obtained more than $18.9 billion in ordered relief, including restitution and canceled debts, for more than 195 million consumers, and more than $4.1 billion in penalties, in actions brought by the agency against financial institutions and individuals that have broken federal consumer financial protection laws.

A handful of other agencies have similar funding schemes including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court limited the independence of the CFPB by invalidating its leadership structure. A 5-4 court held that the structure violated the separation of powers because the president was restricted from removing the director, even if they had policy disagreements.

Agency regulatory authority: Securities and Exchange Commission

The justices are looking at the in-house enforcement proceedings of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in another case that invites the conservative majority to pare back the regulatory authority of federal agencies.

The court’s decision could impact whether the SEC and other agencies can conduct enforcement proceedings in-house, using administrative courts staffed with agency employees, or whether such actions must be brought in federal court.

On one side are critics of such agency courts who argue that they allow federal employees to serve as prosecutors, judges and jury, issuing rulings that could particularly hurt small businesses. On the other side are those who point out that several agencies, including the Social Security Administration, have such internal proceedings because the topics are often complex and the agency has more expertise than a federal judge.

The case arose in 2013 after the SEC brought an enforcement action against George Jarkesy, who had established two hedge funds with his advisory firm, Patriot28, for securities fraud.

The 5th Circuit ruled that the SEC’s proceedings deprive individuals of their Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury. In addition, the court said that Congress had improperly delegated legislative power to the SEC, which gave the agency unconstrained authority at times to choose the in-house administrative proceeding rather than filing suit in district court.

In December, the court will examine the historic multibillion-dollar Purdue Pharma bankruptcy settlement with several states that would ultimately offer the Sackler family broad protection from OxyContin-related civil claims.

Until recently, Purdue was controlled by the Sackler family, who withdrew billions of dollars from the company before it filed for bankruptcy. The family has now agreed to contribute up to $6 billion to Purdue’s reorganization fund on the condition that the Sacklers receive a release from civil liability.

The Biden administration, representing the US Trustee, the executive branch agency that monitors the administration of bankruptcy cases, has called the plan “exceptional and unprecedented” in court papers, noting that lower courts have divided on when parties can be released from liability for actions that caused societal harm.

“The plan’s release ‘absolutely, unconditionally, irrevocably, fully, finally, forever and permanently releases’ the Sacklers from every conceivable type of opioid-related civil claim – even claims based on fraud and other forms of willful misconduct that could not be discharged if the Sacklers filed for bankruptcy in their individual capacities,” Prelogar argued in court papers.

For the second year running, the justices will leap into the online moderation debate and decide whether states can essentially control how social media companies operate.

If upheld, laws from Florida and Texas could open the door to more state legislation requiring platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to treat content in specific ways within certain jurisdictions – and potentially expose the companies to more content moderation lawsuits.

It could also make it harder for platforms to remove what they determine is misinformation, hate speech or other offensive material.

“These cases could completely reshape the digital public sphere. The question of what limits the First Amendment imposes on legislatures’ ability to regulate social media is immensely important – for speech, and for democracy as well,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, in a statement.

“It’s difficult to think of any other recent First Amendment cases in which the stakes were so high,” Jaffer added.

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August 2, 2023
Many in House GOP caution against tying Israel and Ukraine aid together | CNN Politics

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The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are weighing tying legislation for additional military support for Israel with military assistance for Ukraine, setting up a showdown with congressional Republicans opposed to helping Ukraine amid the tumult in the speaker-less chamber.

The looming fight over tying military aid for Israel and Ukraine together – along with Taiwan and potentially border funding – is the latest in a series of complicated questions a new speaker will have to navigate as the narrow Republican majority grapples with its future. It comes as interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry maintains his role is limited to help Israel in the midst of war, meaning the House can’t pass any legislation until a new speaker is chosen.

The White House has yet to formalize a request for additional aid to Israel – it is expediting weapons already purchased first – but briefers on a call with lawmakers Sunday night underscored that there would be an eventual need as Israel burns through munitions. On a Senate briefing Sunday evening, Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and others proposed packaging Ukraine aid and Israel aid together with the expectation that conversation will likely intensify over the next several days ahead of the Senate’s return next week, one person familiar told CNN.

While congressional aides and US officials make clear that Israel is not in danger of running out of equipment in the near term like Ukraine, the thinking is that tying funding for each country together could help get Ukraine aid across the finish line as support has dwindled among House Republicans in recent months.

There is also some discussion of including border security funding and more funding for Taiwan in an eventual package as there is growing uncertainty over how future supplemental packages would fare in the GOP-controlled House.

“There’s discussion about putting Israeli funding with Ukraine funding, maybe Taiwan funding and finally border security funding. To me that would be a good package,” said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who has been a vocal supporter in the conference for continuing to support Ukraine.

It’s an open question if hardliners in the House – who have been vehemently opposed to giving more to Ukraine – would back that effort, however. It’s also not clear if a future speaker – knowing the bitter divide over the issue of Ukraine – would be willing to move a joint package on the House floor.

“Absolutely not,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who has been steadfastly opposed to providing Ukraine with any additional funding. “They shouldn’t be tied together. I will not vote to fund Ukraine.”

But even some House Republicans who support providing Ukraine with additional aid said Monday they had concerns with pairing a supplemental for Israel with Ukraine, given the opposition inside their conference, including Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who co-chairs the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

“You know, right now, probably not,” said Diaz-Balart, who is a House appropriator. “There’s still quite a bit of money left for Ukraine. There will be a moment when we have to revisit that. But I think that there’s potentially going to be a lot more urgency for the situation in Israel.”

The question now is looming large over a massively unpredictable speaker’s race that all signs suggest could drag out for days or weeks. On Monday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who’s running for the position, told CNN that he plans to bring forward a resolution to show support for Israel, but it’s not clear how he would handle a move to bundle Ukraine and Israel military aid.

On Monday night, House Republicans gathered for a conference meeting – the first since McCarthy announced he wouldn’t seek another term as speaker – in order to discuss next steps in the leadership race. But the question of how to support Israel in uncertain times remained a key question.

McHenry has made clear to colleagues that his role is narrow and is only intended to help elect the next speaker of the House. Even as some have raised questions about whether the North Carolina Republican could put a resolution vowing support for Israel on the floor, McHenry has maintained that is not in the scope of his limited role. That means that the only way to move more funding for Israel is to elect a new speaker, something that remains in flux as neither Majority Leader Steve Scalise nor Jordan has locked down the votes they need to secure the gavel.

Further complicating the dynamics, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t rule out if he’d seek the speakership again if the conference failed to rally around one candidate.

“I’m going to allow (the) conference to do their work,” McCarthy said repeatedly on Monday when pressed if he’d get in the race.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at a conference in Washington on Monday that additional funding from Congress would be required for the Defense Department to provide munitions to Israel at the same time the US is supporting Ukraine. Wormuth would not say whether the US would be providing Israel with additional Iron Dome systems, but that she expected the US would “lean forward in support of Israel” in the same way the US has for Ukraine.

“To be able to increase our capacity … to expand production, and then to also pay for the munitions themselves, we need additional support from Congress,” Wormuth said. “We’re obviously at the early stage of the process of evaluating our ability to support what the IDF needs, and just as we have with Ukraine, we’re going to weigh obviously the impacts of requests to our readiness.”

Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional Iron Dome interceptors from the US, according to an Israeli military official and a US defense official. The Israeli official said the request to the Americans includes Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon. Israel has used precision guided bombs to strike targets in Gaza from the air.

Administration officials told lawmakers in the Sunday briefings they are already expediting existing contracts for weapons Israel has purchased to give them a boost in the near term. The administration also can use the presidential drawdown authority to provide additional weapons to Israel, though it would need Congress to increase the amount of money in the fund, officials said.

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August 2, 2023
House Republicans are making a gamble with a possible Jim Jordan speakership | CNN Politics

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If House Republicans elect hard-charging Jim Jordan as speaker on Tuesday, they will be picking an election denier who is known for working to shut down the government rather than running it.

The party would be ending its two-week speakership debacle, but it’d be elevating a ringleader in former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election into a position that is second in the line of succession behind President Joe Biden.

A Jordan speakership would represent a huge victory for Trump, given the Judiciary chairman’s record of using his power to target Democratic presidential candidates, including Biden and 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton. Before the midterm elections last year, for instance, Jordan said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that he’d use probes into the Biden administration to “frame up the 2024 race” for Trump.

He has been as good as his word, working to highlight the ex-president’s claims that the federal government has been “weaponized” against him in an effort to distract from the four criminal trials the GOP front-runner is now facing. And Jordan has been a prominent player in the impeachment investigation opened against Biden, despite the failure of the GOP to provide evidence that the president personally profited from the business ventures of his son in places like China and Ukraine.

Jordan’s hopes of becoming speaker increased dramatically over the weekend as he began to turn holdouts amid an intense lobbying campaign. Some key moderates who had previously said they wouldn’t back the Ohio Republican had changed course by Monday. But given the tiny House GOP majority, Jordan can only lose a small number of Republicans and still win the job in a vote in the full House, which is expected at noon on Tuesday. Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis will be away from the Capitol on Tuesday, further complicating the vote math for Jordan, making it so that he can only lose three Republicans.

But this is a temporary drop until the Florida congressman returns to Washington on Tuesday evening.

Several high-profile dissidents still insist they will only vote for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy or are firmly against Jordan, who co-founded the conservative Freedom Caucus that was instrumental in the demise of the last three Republican speakers. Jordan’s opponents have cited his role in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, insurrection – when he discussed plans to object to the results – and have concerns that his hardline positions could alienate crucial swing voters next year.

If Jordan wins the speakership, his reputation for resistance to compromise is likely to immediately fuel fresh fears of a government shutdown caused by Republican demands for massive spending cuts. Facing a right-wing revolt, McCarthy was forced to use Democratic votes to pass a stopgap funding measure. And he paid for his effort to stave off a national crisis, which could have hurt millions of Americans, with his job. Jordan has been among the right-wing Republicans who want to use their power to bulldoze through their agenda despite the fact that Democrats control the Senate and the White House.

As speaker, Jordan would be in control of half of one of the three branches of the US government – a role that confers duties to the Constitution and the national interest far greater than those that weigh on individual members. By definition, he’d be an insider after years as an insurgent, a switch that could be a challenge. Fellow Ohioan and former Republican House Speaker John Boehner told CBS News in a 2021 interview referring to Jordan: “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart – never building anything, never putting anything together.”

A Jordan victory would mark one of the most significant milestones in Washington Republicans’ embrace of an extreme right-wing populist, nationalist ideology that is more dedicated to tearing political institutions down than using them to forge change. And it would reward the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to topple McCarthy. More broadly, it would remove power from the party’s traditional Washington, DC, political establishment, which many of the party’s grassroots voters despise, and place the Freedom Caucus at the pinnacle of power in the House.

The shift toward Jordan over the weekend, however, may also reflect a realization by lawmakers that the optics of continued chaos in the House are disastrous for the party and sends a message of American weakness amid a raging crisis in the Middle East.

New York Rep. Marc Molinaro, who represents a district Biden would have won in 2020 under redrawn lines, announced Monday evening that he’s backing Jordan. “What I care deeply about is getting back to governing. And having been home over the weekend, I can tell you that most people I talk to just want us to fight inflation, just want us to secure the border, just want us to govern on their behalf. And truly they just want this House to function,” he told CNN.

And if there is anyone who could keep far-right flamethrowers in line, it is Jordan. After all, he’s one of them. If wins the speakership, he’d potentially face a choice whether to at least seek a modicum of governance to show voters that the GOP can get results ahead of the 2024 election. Just as President Richard Nixon had the political cover as a hardline anti-Communist to forge an opening to Maoist China, Jordan might have more leeway than other potential Republican leaders to make painful concessions and keep his hardliners in line.

But choosing Jordan to end the impasse would also represent a huge risk for the GOP. His close alliance with Trump, who has endorsed the Ohio Republican for the top job, could alienate moderate voters in districts that paved the way to the party’s narrow majority in last year’s midterms. His record of full bore confrontation could exacerbate a showdown with the Democratic Senate and the White House over spending that could shut down the government by the middle of November and cause a backlash against Republicans.

And the qualities that his supporters see in Jordan – the fearsome use of power to drum up investigations against political opponents and a pugilistic refusal to find middle ground – are not those traditionally associated with successful speakers. Jordan has no history of bringing disparate factions of his party together – quite the opposite. His brand of politics is built around his history as a champion wrestler in college. “I look at it like a wrestling match,” Jordan told the New York Times earlier this year, referring to his staccato interrogations of witnesses in hearings that made him a hero on conservative media and a Trump favorite.

Another knock on Jordan is that he’s not known as a prolific fundraiser – one of the most important jobs of a party leader in the House. McCarthy was known for his lucrative hauls that he used to boost candidates and foster loyalty from his supporters. In fact, Jordan has actively worked against some fellow members in the past, with the political arm of the Freedom Caucus backing primary challengers to 10 GOP incumbents over the last few cycles.

The job of the House has traditionally been to pass laws. And by that measure, Jordan is one of the least effective legislators of his generation, according to the Center For Effective Lawmaking, a joint project of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University.

Still, Jordan’s supporters worked to mitigate his liabilities heading into a floor vote that would force opponents to publicly renounce him at the risk of drawing primary challenges. House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama, who had been vehemently anti-Jordan, flipped after what he described as “two cordial, thoughtful and productive” conversations with the prospective speaker and securing his support for a strong defense bill. Sources familiar with Jordan’s pitch to the GOP conference told CNN’s Annie Grayer and Melanie Zanona Monday that the Ohio congressman had promised to fundraise hard for Republicans across the country and that he would also do what he could to protect moderates – potentially by ensuring that they don’t face primary challenges next year from hardline pro-Trump candidates.

However, Zanona and Grayer also reported that some big GOP donors had vowed not to invest in the House majority under Jordan and would instead concentrate their resources on flipping the Senate next year. That GOP coolness highlights how a 2024 Republican slate featuring Trump, the front-runner for the presidential nomination, and Jordan as the most powerful Republican in Washington could delight Democrats campaigning in the battleground districts that could decide the election.

Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska, emerged from a meeting of Republican lawmakers on Monday evening resolved not to support Jordan, after expressing concerns that handing him the speaker’s gavel would represent a victory for the hardliners who ended McCarthy’s tenure. Bacon said he was inclined to vote for McCarthy even though the former speaker is not standing, at least in a first ballot. “I’m going to vote tomorrow and we’ll take it after that one at a time,” Bacon said.

Another anti-McCarthy holdout is Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who has said “part of” the reason he is opposed to Jordan is his behavior after the 2020 election. According to the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Jordan was a “significant player” in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and to block the certification of Biden’s victory in Congress, including in multiple conversations with Trump and senior White House officials.

But some key lawmakers appear to have made their peace with Jordan’s potential speakership, partly because of the damage being done to the GOP and their potential reelection prospects by self-indulgent internal battles. New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a freshman who is one of the most endangered Republicans next year and has been a strong supporter of McCarthy, called on the House to get back to work. “At the end of the day, we need to get back to the work of the American people,” Lawler told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday. He said he told Jordan on Friday that he was not a “hell no” and that he’d only back him if he had the votes to become speaker.

He shrugged off attacks that are already coming from Democrats over his possible vote for Jordan.

“They are going to attack me no matter what I do. That’s their job, that’s their objective. They want to get back into the majority,” Lawler told Tapper.

“My constituents know who I am, they know where I stand on these issues,” Lawler said, noting how he had fought to raise the government’s borrowing limit earlier this year, averting a debt default, and to keep the government open.

Lawler might be right. But the potential chaos and discord Jordan could sow may give voters fresh reasons to vote against Lawler by November of next year.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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August 2, 2023
Rand Paul Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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Here’s a look at the life of Rand Paul, US senator from Kentucky.

Birth date: January 7, 1963

Birth place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Birth name: Randal Howard Paul

Father: Ron Paul, former presidential candidate and retired US representative from Texas

Mother: Carol (Wells) Paul

Marriage: Kelley (Ashby) Paul

Children: Robert, Duncan and William

Education: Attended Baylor University, 1981-1984; Duke University School of Medicine, M.D., 1988

Religion: Christian

Practiced as an ophthalmologist for 18 years.

Former president and longtime member of the Lions Club International.

Was active in the congressional and presidential campaigns of his father, Ron Paul.

1993 – Completes his ophthalmology residency at Duke University Medical Center.

1994 – Founds grassroots organization Kentucky Taxpayers United, which monitors state taxation and spending. It is legally dissolved in 2000.

1995 – Founds the Southern Kentucky Lions Eye Clinic, a non-profit providing eye exams and surgeries to those in need.

August 5, 2009 – Announces on Fox News that he is running as a Republican for the US Senate to represent Kentucky.

May 18, 2010 – Defeats Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the Kentucky GOP Senate primary.

May 19, 2010 – In interviews with NPR and MSNBC, while answering questions about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Paul expresses strong abhorrence for racism, but says that it is the job of communities, not the government, to address discrimination. Paul later releases a statement saying that he supports the Civil Rights Act and would not support its repeal.

November 2, 2010 – Paul is elected to the Senate, defeating Jack Conway.

January 5, 2011 – Sworn in for the 112th Congress. It is the first time a son joins the Senate while his father concurrently serves in the House. Ron Paul retires from the House in 2013.

January 27, 2011 – Participates in the inaugural meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus with Senators Mike Lee and Jim DeMint.

February 22, 2011 – Paul’s book “The Tea Party Goes to Washington” is published.

September 11, 2012 – Paul’s book “Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds” is published. He is later accused of plagiarism in some of his speeches and writings, including in “Government Bullies.” Paul ultimately takes responsibility, saying his office had been “sloppy” and pledging to add footnotes to all of his future material.

February 12, 2013 – Delivers the Tea Party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

March 6-7, 2013 – Paul speaks for almost 13 hours, filibustering to stall a confirmation vote on CIA Director nominee John Brennan.

February 12, 2014 – Paul and the conservative group FreedomWorks file a class-action lawsuit against Obama and top national security officials over the government’s electronic surveillance program made public by intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. The lawsuit is later dismissed.

December 2, 2014 – Paul announces his bid for a second term in the Senate.

April 7, 2015 – Paul announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination during an event in Louisville, Kentucky.

May 20, 2015 – After 10 hours and 30 minutes, Paul ends his “filibuster” over National Security Agency surveillance programs authorized under the Patriot Act. Paul’s speech wasn’t technically a filibuster because of intricate Senate rules, but his office insists it was a filibuster.

August 5, 2015 – The Justice Department indicts two officials from a Rand Paul Super PAC for conspiracy and falsifying campaign records. During the 2012 presidential primary season, Jesse Benton and John Tate allegedly bribed an Iowa state senator to get him to endorse Ron Paul. Benton and Tate go on to help run one of the Super PACs supporting Rand Paul, America’s Liberty PAC. Both men are later convicted.

February 3, 2016 – Announces that he is suspending his campaign for the presidency.

November 8, 2016 – Wins a second term in the Senate, defeating Democrat Jim Gray.

November 3, 2017 – A neighbor assaults Paul at his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which results in six broken ribs and a pleural effusion – a build-up of fluid around the lungs. The attorney representing Paul’s neighbor, Rene Boucher, later says that the occurrence had “absolutely nothing” to do with politics and was “a very regrettable dispute between two neighbors over a matter that most people would regard as trivial.” Boucher, who pleaded guilty to the assault, is sentenced in June 2018 to 30 days in prison with a year of supervised release.

August 2018 – Goes to Moscow and meets with Russian lawmakers, extending an invitation to visit the United States. While abroad, Paul tweets that he delivered a letter to Russian leader Vladimir Putin from US President Donald Trump. A White House spokesman later says that Paul asked Trump to provide a letter of introduction. After he returns, Paul says that he plans to ask Trump to lift sanctions on members of the Russian legislature so they can come to Washington for meetings with their American counterparts.

January 29, 2019 – A jury awards him more than $580,000 in his lawsuit against the neighbor who attacked him in 2017. The amount includes punitive damages and payment for pain and suffering as well as medical damages.

August 5, 2019 – Paul says part of his lung had to be removed by surgery following the 2017 attack by Boucher.

March 22, 2020 – Paul announces that he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the first US senator to test positive for coronavirus.

August 10, 2021 – Paul is suspended from YouTube for seven days over a video claiming that masks are ineffective in fighting Covid-19, according to a YouTube spokesperson.

November 8, 2022 – Wins reelection to the Senate for a third term.

October 10, 2023 – Paul’s book “Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up” is published.

Rand Paul’s political life

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August 2, 2023
Federal judge orders Texas to remove floating barriers aimed at deterring migrants on Rio Grande | CNN Politics

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A federal judge ordered Texas to remove floating barriers in the Rio Grande and barred the state from building new or placing additional buoys in the river, according to a Wednesday court filing, marking a victory for the Biden administration.

Judge David Alan Ezra ordered Texas to take down the barriers by September 15 at its own expense.

The border buoys have been a hot button immigration issue since they were deployed in the Rio Grande as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative known as Operation Lone Star. The Justice Department had sued the state of Texas in July claiming that the buoys were installed unlawfully and asking the judge to force the state to remove them.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in the Western District of Texas, the Justice Department alleged that Texas and Abbott violated the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act by building a structure in US water without permission from United States Army Corps of Engineers and sought an injunction to bar Texas from building additional barriers in the river. The Republican governor, meanwhile, has argued the buoys are intended to deter migrants from crossing into the state from Mexico.

Texas swiftly appealed the judge’s order.

“This ruling is incorrect and will be overturned on appeal. We will continue to utilize every strategy to secure the border, including deploying Texas National Guard soldiers and Department of Public Safety troopers and installing strategic barriers,” Abbott’s office said in a statement, adding that the state “is prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Ezra wrote Wednesday that Abbott needed permission to install the barriers, as dictated by law.

“Governor Abbott announced that he was not ‘asking for permission’ for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas constructed the floating barrier. Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation’s navigable waters,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

Ezra also found Texas’ self-defense argument – that the barriers have been placed in the face of invasion – “unconvincing.”

“This argument fails because (1) the RHA has already balanced policy interests and determined that the nation’s interest in free navigation of its waterways is supreme to unauthorized state action, and (2) whether Texas’s claim of ‘invasion’ is legitimate is a non-justiciable political question demonstrably committed to the federal political branches,” he wrote.

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement following the order that the Justice Department is “pleased that the court ruled that the barrier was unlawful and irreparably harms diplomatic relations, public safety, navigation, and the operations of federal agency officials in and around the Rio Grande. “

The Justice Department had brought the lawsuit after Abbott said he would not order the removal of the floating barriers from the Rio Grande, in defiance of the department’s request days before.

Ezra heard arguments in the case last month, during which the Justice Department focused on its claim that the barriers violated federal law, but also on the buoys’ role in fraying relations with Mexico – which has voiced concern with the “inhumane” barriers and claimed they reside in part on the country’s territory.

Texas, meanwhile, maintained it had constitutional authority to deploy the floating barriers. Ezra at times requested that the state’s attorneys focus on the buoys and not dive into other issues like fentanyl and overall illegal immigration on the US southern border.

The state is facing another lawsuit over the barriers, brought in early July by the owner of a Texas canoe and kayaking company operating on the Rio Grande.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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August 2, 2023
Biden advisers plotted impeachment response plan ahead of McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry announcement | CNN Politics

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President Joe Biden’s team has begun to execute an impeachment playbook more than a year in the making: Discredit the investigators while sticking to the business of governing.

Biden’s aides spent the August congressional recess honing their plans after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested in late July he was likely to open an impeachment inquiry.

But they’d been hiring staff and gaming out possible scenarios for months before that, consulting veterans of past impeachments and determining the contours of their response.

The principal objective for Biden’s team is countering what many Democrats fear could become an ingrained narrative of self-dealing about the president – despite a lack of any evidence so far of wrongdoing.

“If you don’t answer it, it can sink into the voter psyche. They’re walking that line,” a person familiar with White House thinking said.

On Wednesday evening, Biden made his first public comments on McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry, linking the inquiry to the upcoming showdown over funding the government. Congress faces a September 30 deadline to keep the government open and McCarthy is facing deep divisions within his own conference about how to handle the matter.

“Well, I tell you what, I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me. And now, the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.”

“So look, look, I got a job to do. Everybody always asked about impeachment. I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”

The impeachment inquiry comes at a fragile political moment for the president. Widespread concern about his age and reelection prospects have caused jitters in Democratic circles. Some allies have voiced private concern at how intense attention on his son Hunter Biden could become a drag on him, politically and emotionally.

But Biden’s advisers believe the inquiry announced Tuesday by McCarthy could be used to their advantage if Republicans are viewed as overstepping in their claims or shirking their governing responsibilities, according to officials who laid out their plans.

An impeachment inquiry would give Republicans broad new powers to request documents and testimony about the Bidens. Even an inquiry with shaky foundations lacking support from a majority of lawmakers will still consume time and energy inside the White House.

While House Republicans have so far failed to surface anything showing President Biden profited from his son’s business, they have found that Hunter Biden used his father’s name to help advance deals. A former partner, Devin Archer, testified that there were “maybe 20 times” when Joe Biden was placed on speakerphone during meetings with his and Hunter Biden’s business partners, though said “nothing” of importance was ever discussed during these calls.

Even as Republicans continue failing to produce direct evidence tying the president to his son’s foreign business dealings, some polls already show concern among voters. Sixty-one percent of Americans said in a CNN poll released last week they think Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal.

For now, the White House views the situation from a communications standpoint rather than as a legal issue. They have yet to formally hear from any of the committees involved.

“We see this as a political communications battle as opposed to a legitimate impeachment inquiry,” a source familiar with the White House’s strategy said.

The aggressive messaging posture, that source said, represents a recognition that there’s a need to fill the vacuum and push back on Republicans.

With the prospect of a government shutdown looming if lawmakers cannot come to agreement on a new spending package by September 30, Democrats also see an opportunity to point out what they view as a fractured conference unable to perform the basic duties of their jobs.

As early as last summer, the White House began laying the ground to respond to Republican investigations in the event of a GOP takeover in the House of Representatives. In the hours after McCarthy opened the inquiry, the White House launched an aggressive messaging strategy centered on the lack of evidence so far linking the president to anything illegal.

The crux of the West Wing’s message: House Republicans “can’t even say what they’re impeaching him for,” White House spokesman Ian Sams told CNN on Wednesday.

The response strategy taking shape included a blitz of cable news appearances by Sams, social media posts and a letter from the White House to news executives urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans.

Biden’s campaign also seized on the impeachment announcement, blasting an email with Vice President Kamala Harris’ name telling supporters it was time to “stand behind our president” while criticizing House Republicans by name for launching the inquiry.

“Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and MAGA Republicans just launched a beyond ridiculous impeachment inquiry into President Biden,” the fundraising email reads.

The email from Harris was the “best performing” email sent in her name this cycle, two sources familiar with the campaign’s fundraising efforts said. They declined to offer an exact dollar amount raised. The sources said the email expanded their active email list by 700,000, helping them grow the universe of fundraising emails that users actually see, instead of having them go to spam, the sources said.

“We believe this is the latest example of MAGA extremism that regular voters, regular American people will reject to our advantage,” one of the sources said.

The email is the first of what is expected to be several efforts by the Biden campaign to use the new inquiry to its advantage and raise money off the effort.

The close association between former President Donald Trump and House Republicans who pushed for the inquiry – Trump discussed the matter with members over the past several days – has also provided an opening for Biden’s aides to paint the step as an exercise in MAGA extremism.

Talking points distributed by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday suggested Biden supporters cast the impeachment as “McCarthy doing Trump’s bidding.”

“As Trump pressured Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans to move forward with a baseless impeachment, McCarthy immediately obliged,” one of the talking points reads.

Still, for all of the preparation, impeachment-related steps are unwelcome for any White House. In the past, those proceedings have become all-consuming distractions, despite best-laid efforts to rise above or ignore. Like during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, the Biden White House has sought to separate its response operation from the ongoing work of the administration.

That includes building a team of two dozen lawyers, legislative staff and communications advisers to push back against a potential impeachment. Along with spokesman Sams, the White House last summer named Dick Sauber to serve as a special counsel and Russ Anello, a former Democratic staff director of the House Oversight Committee, as an adviser to response to oversight requests.

Biden’s campaign also brought on Ammar Moussa, an official at the Democratic National Committee, to act as the campaign’s rapid response director whose portfolio includes responding to issues like an impeachment inquiry. The campaign sent around talking points to allies after McCarthy’s announcement, and will continue preparing its surrogates with information on impeachment matters for television appearances.

And a Democratic group, Congressional Integrity Project, has been one of the outside entities leading the charge on messaging against the impeachment efforts, including through polling memos and fact sheets. One of the group’s objectives is targeting the 18 House Republicans in districts Biden won.

“While McCarthy is trying to avoid a vote on an impeachment inquiry to save the Biden 18 from going on the record, the American people deserve to know where the Biden 18 stand on an evidence-free impeachment, and we will hold them accountable for the promises they made to the American people when they ran for their office,” said Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project.

Biden himself has yet to directly weigh in since McCarthy’s announcement, but he made implicit nods to the possibility over the past months, suggesting it was an attempt to distract from an improving economy.

“Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for now that inflation is coming down. Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down,” he said during an event at a manufacturing facility in Maine. “I don’t know. I love that one.”

That comment aside, it’s unlikely Biden himself will make a habit of commenting on the proceedings going forward. He stared ahead without answering when questioned about the matter during an event at the White House on Wednesday focused on efforts to cure cancer.

An element of the White House strategy is keeping him focused on his governing duties, including plans to deliver what the White House has billed as a “major economic address” in Maryland on Thursday. He also continues focusing on foreign policy with a trip to the annual United Nations meetings in New York next week.

“The White House is going to do it from the standpoint of making sure they can answer everything legally from a communications standpoint, while keeping Joe Biden and Kamala Harris above the fray and focused on governing and communicating the domestic agenda,” a source familiar with the matter said.

This story has been updated with additional developments on Wednesday.

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August 2, 2023
House Democrats weigh risky strategy: Whether to save McCarthy | CNN Politics

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House Democrats have begun internal discussions about how to deal with the prospects of a chaotic situation: The possibility that Speaker Kevin McCarthy could lose his job in an unprecedented vote on the floor.

While no decisions have been made, some of the party’s moderates are privately signaling they’d be willing to cut a deal to help McCarthy stave off a right-wing revolt – as long as the speaker meets their own demands.

Publicly, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has not weighed in on how he’d want his members to manage a challenge to McCarthy’s speakership, saying it’s hypothetical at this point. But privately, Jeffries has counseled his members to keep their powder dry, according to multiple sources, a recognition it’s better for Democrats to keep their options open as the government funding fight plays outs.

“If somehow Democrats are asked to be helpful, it’s not just going to have to be out of the kindness of our hearts,” Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan, told CNN. “If Kevin can’t govern with just his part – which clearly he can’t – and he wants to have a conversation with us about how to do that, we are going to have a policy conversation.”

Asked recently by CNN if he would need to rely on Democrats to help save him, McCarthy would not say.

“I am not worried about that,” he said.

The private discussions have picked up steam in recent days, as a handful of hardline GOP members dig in against a series of spending bills – an effort that could catapult the government into a shutdown – and as any move the speaker takes to advance a short-term spending bill with Democrats could trigger the end of his speakership.

If McCarthy’s position was threatened with a so-called motion to vacate, and there were five Republicans backing it, Democrats would have a major role in deciding McCarthy’s fate.

But members who spoke to CNN made clear that any Democratic help would come at a cost. And their asking price for saving his speakership, Democratic members say, is a bipartisan deal to avoid a shutdown – a route McCarthy is not yet prepared to take, as Republicans are still trying to find consensus on a GOP plan to fund the government.

“I think it is fair to say Democrats have a responsibility to be preparing for the possibility that there will be some sort of upheaval,” one Democratic member told CNN.

One of the strategies being discussed by Democrats is to vote “present” or vote to kill it all together if a motion to oust McCarthy is brought to the floor. Voting present would change the threshold and make it harder for McCarthy’s critics to oust him, which would require a majority of those voting in order to succeed.

It’s a complicated dance for Democrats, who don’t want to be seen as saving McCarthy – especially after he just launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden – and could open them up to backlash on the left. But some Democrats also fear the potential alternative: a government shutdown and the prospect of an even more right-wing lawmaker ascending to the speakership if McCarthy is ousted – or the House being paralyzed with no candidate able to win 218 votes to be elected speaker.

“If he just jams us with something awful, and they still try to kill him, and that’s gonna be his approach to work with the Freedom Caucus, there’s less incentive (to help him),” said one Democrat. “Still, even then, you’re gonna have a lot of people who say: ‘Well I think what’s behind door No. 3 might be a lot worse.’”

“I think if he’s willing to work together on things,” the member said, adding, “There will be enough of us to protect him.”

It’s still not clear when or if McCarthy’s detractors would try and push the issue. Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida – one of McCarthy’s most vocal critics – would not specify Wednesday when he would move to force a vote on removing McCarthy as speaker. But he warned McCarthy against working with Democrats, and said House Republicans who work with Democrats to avoid a shutdown would be signing their own “political death warrant.”

“If Speaker McCarthy relies on Democrats to pass a continuing resolution, I would call the Capitol moving truck to his office pretty soon because my expectation would be he’d be out of the speaker’s office quite promptly,” said Gaetz, who privately told his colleagues Wednesday there are seven Republicans who would vote against any stop-gap measure, enough to kill it if all Democrats oppose a conservative plan.

With less than two weeks before a government shutdown, Democrats are watching the speaker’s actions carefully on spending and taking whether McCarthy is willing to cut his right flank lose in pursuit of a bipartisan deal on spending – short-handed on Capitol Hill as a continuing resolution or a CR – into consideration for how they’d act on the floor if a motion to vacate were brought forward.

“If we were actually part of the deal, like actually part of a commonsense agreement on CR and budget, I think you would find a significant group of people willing to vote present,” one Democrat said.

Meanwhile, as frustration in the GOP has reached a fever pitch, private talks between moderate Democrats and Republicans about a bipartisan funding deal have grown more serious: the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus has developed a framework for a plan, and Jeffries stopped by their meeting on Wednesday.

Leaving the meeting, Jeffries called for a bipartisan agreement in line with what was already negotiated in the debt ceiling package – a deal cut by McCarthy but later abandoned amid pressure from his right flank to seek deeper cuts.

“We need to find a bipartisan agreement consistent with what was previously reached,” he said.

But the mechanism for putting such a bill on the floor is complicated. One possible option is for GOP members of the group to sign onto a so-called discharge petition, a complicated and time-consuming procedural mechanism. If five Republicans did so, it would trigger a process that could force the bill onto the floor for a vote without McCarthy having to do it. But that process would likely take too long at this point to avert a shutdown.

Members are also discussing other procedural options with the House parliamentarian, lawmakers told CNN.

“Failure is not an option. We’re gonna do everything we can to prevent a shutdown,” said Republican Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska.

Bacon warned that he would cut a deal with Democrats if they reach an impasse with conservative hardliners.

“Well, in the end, if not, we will have to work across the aisle and get it done. I think people got that message,” he said.

But the growing consensus is that with time running out, the most viable path to avoid a government shutdown is for the speaker to cut his right flank loose and make a deal with the middle – and then Democrats could bail McCarthy out from the inevitable vote to oust him that would be triggered by that scenario.

Democrats considering bailing out McCarthy say it wouldn’t necessarily stop there.

“We are having pretty broad conversations about like, use your imagination in terms of how you re-envision … this place is not working,” the member said. “I don’t think it would ever be as transactional as ‘OK, I get a vote on my bill and I am done …’ because you can’t trust him. I think then it becomes everything from what is committee presentation to how bills get pulled to the floor and how are those decisions made?”

An opportunity to extract concessions from McCarthy, however, likely would never be enough for some Democrats. For Democrats, extending a lifeline to McCarthy could mean facing a primary challenge back home, not to mention the fact that any goodwill McCarthy might have still had with some Democrats evaporated with his announcement he was launching an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

“There is not a chance in hell I would vote for the speaker. I barely have words. What reasonable thing has he done? What demonstrable outreach has he made to try to bring the House together, to work together in a deliberative and cooperative way,” Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida told CNN. “The real answer is I don’t see a scenario right now in which he would warrant my support, but I also would never say never.”

Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota recently said “right now, no,” he and other Democrats would not come to McCarthy’s rescue if he faced a motion to vacate from his own party.

“If you’d asked about two months ago I would have said absolutely. But I think sadly his behavior is unprincipled, it’s unhelpful to the country,” he said.

He continued later: “I understand the position he’s in but these are times when people have to make a choice. Do you pander to the few or do you take care of the many?”

Several Democrats argued that past Republican speakers – like Paul Ryan or John Boehner – may have been worth saving. But McCarthy, they argue is different.

If McCarthy were challenged, it may only take a handful of Democrats to save him. Aside from voting “present,” they could also just vote to table the resolution – a procedural workaround that would essentially kill the effort. But, letting members walk the plank alone could be politically dangerous for moderates. Voting in total Democratic unison could shield members from the base.

“I think we need to have a party position on it. I don’t think that has been resolved yet. It is still evolving,” Democratic Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts told CNN.

Many Democrats are still weighing their options.

“You know there are so many variables right now, I really don’t have an answer,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania told CNN.

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August 2, 2023
McCarthy faces a threat to oust him as speaker. Here’s how that could work | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Following a showdown on Capitol Hill over government funding, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is heading toward a significant leadership test.

The California Republican faces tough vote math, major challenges and the potential threat of a conservative revolt against his speakership.

House Republicans control only a narrow majority, a dynamic that has left McCarthy with little room to maneuver and has given hardline conservatives outsized influence to exert pressure over the speaker.

To win over critics and secure the speaker’s gavel in January, McCarthy and his allies made a series of concessions to conservatives. One major concession was to restore the ability of any one member to offer what’s known as a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair – a move that can trigger a House floor vote to oust the speaker.

Firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, moved ahead in his attempt to oust McCarthy from the top leadership post Monday, offering a motion to vacate the chair on the House floor. Here’s what that means:

In practical terms, a motion to vacate the chair takes the form of a resolution to remove the speaker by declaring the speakership to be vacant. It is a rarely used procedural tool – and no House speaker has ever been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them. But threats over its use can be a powerful way to apply pressure to a speaker.

Any member can file a House resolution to remove the speaker. According to House precedent, a resolution to remove the speaker would be considered privileged, a designation that gives it priority over other issues. But simply filing the resolution does not force a vote on its own, though it would be sure to ignite a political firestorm and a debate over the speaker’s future.

To force a vote, a member would need to come to the House floor and announce their intent to offer the resolution to remove the speaker. Doing that would then require the speaker to put the resolution on the legislative schedule within two legislative days – setting up a showdown on the floor over the issue.

If a member introduces a resolution, but does not announce it from the floor, that would not force a vote or have any immediate impact – making it more of a symbolic threat or warning shot to the speaker.

A vote on the resolution to remove the speaker would require a majority vote to succeed and oust the speaker from their leadership post.

A vote on a resolution to remove the speaker could still be preempted, however, even once it is on track to come to the floor for consideration.

For example, when the resolution is called up on the floor, a motion to table – or kill – the resolution could be offered and would be voted on first. That vote would also only require a simple majority to succeed – and if it did succeed then there would not be a vote directly on the resolution to remove the speaker because the resolution would instead be tabled.

According to the reference guide “House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House,” the speaker is required to submit a confidential list to the Clerk of people “in the order in which each shall act as Speaker pro tempore in the case of a vacancy.”

Should McCarthy suddenly find himself out of his job as speaker, the Clerk will then pull out that list, and the number one name on that list becomes the interim speaker. His or her first order of business: The election of a new speaker – and once again, the House will have to vote as many times as it takes to get someone to 218 votes, or a majority of those present and voting for a speaker.

The last time a high-profile showdown played out on Capitol Hill over a motion to vacate was in 2015 when then-GOP Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina filed a resolution to declare the office of speaker vacant while John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, was serving as speaker. It was not brought to a floor vote, however.

Not long after the resolution was filed, Boehner downplayed its significance, calling it “no big deal.” But a few months later, he announced that he had decided to resign, saying that he had planned to step down at the end of the year but that turmoil within his caucus prompted him to resign earlier than planned.

Another notable incident took place in 1910, when then-House Speaker Joseph Cannon, an Illinois Republican, held onto the speakership after a resolution to remove the speaker came to a vote on the House floor and failed – 155 to 192.

While Gaetz’s push to oust McCarthy poses a major political threat, there are a number of factors that would make it challenging for such an effort to ultimately succeed in removing the speaker.

“It’s probably harder to remove a speaker using a privileged resolution than people think,” said Matthew Green, a professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington, DC, and author of the book “The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership.”

“It requires a pivotal bloc of members of the majority willing to withstand criticism and peer pressure from their partisan colleagues for introducing the resolution, bipartisan agreement that the incumbent speaker should be ousted, and a majority willing to select someone else to replace the speaker.”

“It remains a potent threat as long as people believe it is a viable tool to remove a speaker. If it is actually brought to the floor and fails, it will lose its potency,” Green said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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August 2, 2023
These are the 20 Republicans who voted against Jim Jordan for speaker | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The first vote concerning Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid to become the next speaker of the House not only fell short on Tuesday, it was, in the words of one ally of the Ohio Republican, “much worse than we expected.”

Twenty Republicans voted against Jordan’s candidacy, far more than the handful he could afford to lose given the party’s narrow majority in Congress.

These are the House Republicans who voted against Jordan:

1. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska voted for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

2. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon voted for McCarthy

3. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York

4. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida voted for Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana

5. Rep. Jake Ellzey of Texas voted for Rep. Mike Garcia of California

6. Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York voted for Zeldin

7. Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida voted for McCarthy

8. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas voted for Scalise

9. Rep. Kay Granger of Texas voted for Scalise

10. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania voted for Scalise

11. Rep. Jennifer Kiggans of Virginia voted for McCarthy

12. Rep. Nick LaLota of New York voted for Zeldin

13. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York voted for McCarthy

14. Rep. John Rutherford of Florida voted for Scalise

15. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho voted for Scalise

16. Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas voted for Scalise

17. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado voted for Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota

18. Rep. John James of Michigan voted for Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma

19. Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California voted for McCarthy

20. Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted for Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky

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August 2, 2023
What judicial ethics rules say about Clarence Thomas’ lifestyle bankrolled by his friends | CNN Politics

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It’s undeniable that Justice Clarence Thomas’ friendships with billionaires willing to foot his bill on their vacations together have given the conservative jurist a lifestyle most Americans could only dream of.

But determining whether Thomas violated ethics rules and laws by failing to disclose that hospitality is tricky.

The law in question is the Ethics in Government Act, and how it should be applied to the extravagant travel that Thomas and other justices have been treated to has been a subject of debate.

The debate centers on what counts as “personal hospitality” – i.e., accommodations and entertainment that judges are treated to personally by their friends – which does not have to be reported on annual financial disclosures under certain contexts.

The Supreme Court’s critics note that, even if Thomas was not technically in violation of the rules, his pattern of accepting – and not reporting – lavish experiences such as skybox tickets to major sporting events and far-flung trips on mega-yachts shows that the high court cannot be trusted to police itself under the current standards. Some argue that more stringent ethical reforms – perhaps in the form of legislation – are needed.

Further complicating the picture is that the regulations laying out when personal hospitality need not be reported have recently been tightened. Thomas’ defenders have pointed to those changes, announced earlier this year, to argue that the old regime did not require the justice to report the types of hospitality now under scrutiny. Thomas himself – in a rare statement released in April, when ProPublica published its first investigation into the extravagant travel perks he has received – noted that reworked ethical guidance and vowed to follow it going forward.

But assessing whether the gifts and hospitality described in the latest ProPublica report – which puts the tally at 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, eight helicopter trips and a dozen VIP tickets to sporting events – would require disclosure, either then or under the tightened rules, is a complicated question. It sometimes depends on details about how the high-end trips were financed that were not fully fleshed out by the report.

“The question is: Who is absorbing the cost?” said Stephen Gillers, a New York University School of Law professor who has written extensively about legal ethics and rules.

Thomas is not the only justice who has engaged in such jet-setting. When Justice Samuel Alito was the subject of a ProPublica report detailing a 2008 private flight he took to Alaska on a plane owned by a GOP megadonor, he argued in a preemptive essay published by Wall Street Journal’s opinion section that he was not required to disclose it under ethics rules in place at the time. Alito claimed that plane trip fit the definition of “facility” in the requirements’ exemptions for personal hospitality extended to judges “on property or facilities owned by (a) person”

Ethics experts have pushed back on the idea that a private flight could be interpreted to fall under the term “facility.” The new guidance announced in March makes clear that going forward, private plane trips cannot be excluded from the reporting requirements because “substitutes for commercial transportation” are not part of the exemptions.

ProPublica’s latest report, published Thursday, surfaces several helicopter trips that Thomas took apparently at the expense of his billionaire benefactors. Even under the new guidance, there could be some argument that certain helicopter trips may not require disclosure, according to Gillers, who gave the example of a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon.

Since such a ride would not be a replacement of a commercial flight, but instead a form of entertainment offered by a friend, disclosure could potentially be avoided. But another key question, under the new guidance, is whether the helicopter ride was being paid for personally by the friend of the judge.

The new guidance states that accommodations offered to a judge that are not paid for out of the personal pocketbook of an individual – but through a third-party entity, which could include the friend’s company or another business – would require disclosure. If the person footing the cost is seeking a tax deduction for the expense of the accommodation or gift, that would also trigger a judge’s reporting requirement.

Justice Roberts wrote ‘condescending’ letter to Senate when asked to testify about ethics

That means if the helicopter rides described in the ProPublica report – which Thomas occasionally enjoyed in the mid-2000s because of his friendship with the late corporate titan Wayne Huizenga – were on a helicopter owned by Huizenga’s business, Thomas would have to disclose them under the new rules. Even if Huizenga owned the helicopter personally, if he put the cost of the rides toward a tax exemption, that would also mean Thomas’ helicopter jaunts would fall outside of the exemptions.

Thomas’ friendships with oil baron Paul “Tony” Novelly and real estate mogul Harlan Crow have led to the billionaires hosting him on their mega-yachts. Those trips have included ventures with Novelly in the Bahamas and island-hopping with Crow in Indonesia. Since Thomas presumably was sleeping on the yachts, he can argue they’re covered by the disclosure exception for accommodations personally offered by friends.

“Thomas could say that, just as a weekend at a country home at the invitation of a friend is personal hospitality, a week on my friend’s yacht is also personal hospitality. It’s just that one is on the land and one is on the water,” Gillers said.

Another area of scrutiny in the new ProPublica report is tickets to major sporting events – often for skybox seats – that Thomas received from his wealthy friends. Government ethics experts quoted in the story raised the disclosure requirement for gifts valued at more than $415 as potentially problematic for Thomas.

However, according to Gabe Roth, who heads the organization Fix the Court, the ethics questions over the tickets hinge more on the entertainment exemption for judges when they are receiving personal hospitality.

“You could make the argument that sporting tickets count as entertainment,” said Roth, whose group advocates for ethics reform and more transparency in the judiciary.

Thomas is not the only justice who has failed to report sporting event tickets on their disclosures. Justice Elena Kagan attended a University of Wisconsin football game – sitting in the Chancellor’s Box – in 2017 that went unreported on her disclosure for that year, according to a Fix the Court review.

Still, ProPublica points to the example of 60 lower court judges who reported sporting event tickets on their annual forms between 2003 and 2019.

It is a particularly complicated endeavor to decipher Thomas’ reporting obligations for the access he reportedly got, via his friendship with Huizenga, to an exclusive Florida golf course. The report describes a “standing invitation” Thomas had to the members-only course, the Floridian, but ProPublica said it was not clear whether Thomas was granted a full-fledged membership or whether he was just able to visit the course as a guest of Huizenga.

However, there are signs pointing toward disclosure for judges who do receive gifted golf club memberships. In his filing for 2008, Chief Justice John Roberts reported honorary memberships to two golf courses – valued in the thousands of dollars – that he was gifted, while even noting in the disclosure forms that he didn’t use the memberships.

“If that’s John Roberts’ interpretation of the federal disclosure law, I am going to side with him on this,” Roth said.

The latest investigation into Thomas’ conduct also hit on an issue that has emerged around several of the justices: whether their activity with certain charities and other organizations violates ethical standards limiting judges’ participation in fundraising.

ProPublica, piggybacking off recent reporting by The New York Times, dug into Thomas’ involvement with the Horatio Alger Association, which offers scholarships and mentorships to students, and which connected Thomas to some of the billionaire benefactors highlighted in the report.

Thomas, according to The Times and ProPublica, facilitated events for the organization that were hosted at the Supreme Court, with the latest investigation reporting that access to one such event cost $1,500 or more in contributions per person.

Under a set of ethics rules for the judiciary that are separate from the financial disclosure requirements, judges are barred from allowing the “prestige” of their office to be used for the purpose of fundraising.

“You can attend an event of an organization, a non-profit that serves as a fundraiser,” Gillers said. “But the justice or judge cannot be identified as an attraction for people to come and donate money.”

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August 2, 2023